The Headache
by matthewsbj
Summary: Ryan has a headache. How will Sandy and Kirsten react? I'm thinking this is set sometime early season 2, after Ryan comes back from Chino.


Ryan Atwood sat on his bed, turned off the light on his bedside table, then laid down on the bed. As he was pulling up the covers and getting comfortable, there was knock on his door. He let out a frustrated sigh. "Seth! Come on, man. You know I'm trying to go to bed!"

The door opened a little and a head popped in. "It's not Seth, kid."

Ryan's head snapped up as the figure came all the way into his room, and he reached up and turned on the lamp. "Oh, sorry Sandy. It's dark, and I thought you were Seth."

Sandy dismissed his worries with a wave of his hand. "Hey, don't worry about it. There was no way you could have known it was me."

There was a little bit of silence in the room, and any silence that involved Sandy made him a little nervous, even still after all this time; he was afraid he was in trouble. He knew that Seth got his talkative nature from Sandy, so his silence wasn't exactly the best sign.

Ryan was the first to break the silence. "So, what's up?" Ryan asked, trying to act positive.

Sandy seemed a little nervous, which was a little bit more unnerving for Ryan. "Well… Um… You see…" After stumbling over his own words for a second or two, he finally sighed heavily, and started talking, "Ok, here goes. Kirsten and I were in bed reading and we saw you turn your light off and go to bed. It's almost unheard of for you boys to be home before 11:00 on a Friday night, let alone being in bed before 9:30. Kirsten wanted to come out and check on you. I convinced her to let me come; I thought she might overwhelm you a little. Are you feeling ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." Ryan's response came too quickly for Sandy's taste, and he just gave the kid a look that accurately told him he didn't believe that a bit. Ryan rolled his eyes when he realized he didn't get away with it. "Fine. I've got a bit of a headache, and I'm kind of tired. I thought if I could get to bed a little early tonight, I could just sleep it off."

Sandy moved closer to the bed and sat down next to his son, a little bit more on the alert. Wondering, at what point he should actually go get Kirsten. He put his hand on Ryan's forehead to check for a fever while the boy had his eyes closed because of the light from his bedside lamp. Ryan was somewhat startled when he felt Sandy's hand. His eyes shot open, but he didn't move away. "Well, you don't have a fever… Have you taken anything?"

"Yeah, I took a couple of Tylenol PM a few minutes ago. If I can get to sleep, usually I can stay asleep and the headache will be gone in the morning."

Sandy patted Ryan on the shoulder, "All right. Well, I will report back to Kirsten. I'll try to hold her off, but I make no promises. The Kirsten may still make an appearance yet tonight."

Ryan smiled at that possibility, or at the absurdity of Kirsten running around worrying about a little headache. "That's ok, Sandy. It's cool. Thanks."

Sandy returned the smile, "That's ok, son. That's what we're here for." With that, he got up, turned off the light for Ryan, and made his way out of the room.

Ryan was finding himself drifting in that space between awake and sleep when he detected movement in his room. He woke fully, to find Kirsten standing just inside the pool house with Sandy peering just over her shoulder.

When they made eye contact, or what she assumed was eye contact, she took that as permission to fully enter the room, and made her way to the bed and sat down where Sandy had just been sitting.

Ryan looked over at his clock as Kirsten turned on the lamp. He saw that only a few minutes had passed since Sandy had left. He looked at Sandy and smirked, "Wow! It's been 5 minutes; I'm impressed!"

Kirsten's confusion was evident. "5 minutes for what?"

"Nothing!" Sandy and Ryan said at the same time, looking at each other conspiratorially, while periodically glancing at Kirsten.

"Ok… Well, honey, Sandy told me that you weren't feeling well."

Ryan shot a meaningful look at Sandy, but told Kirsten, "No, I just have a headache and I'm tired."

Now, it was Kirsten's turn to smirk, as she turned to Sandy. "See, I told you it wouldn't be very difficult to get him to tell me what's wrong."

All Ryan could do was lay there in bed with his mouth gapping in surprise at how easily Kirsten had just handled him.

When she looked back at Ryan, she had to laugh at his wide eyes. "Hey! I know my boys!" She looked around his room, taking inventory. "Sandy, could you grab a bottle of water out of Ryan's fridge, please, in case he needs something to drink? Good, I see your phone is right here, if you need anything during the night, please call us."

Ryan raised an eyebrow, "Seriously, you want me to call you? I'll be fine."

"Oh, honey, I know you'll probably be fine, but if you do need anything, I would feel much better if you called us rather than having to get it yourself. I know that you're in pain; you've had your eyes closed from this little bedside lamp. It's no fun scrounging around for something in the middle of the night when you have a headache."

Ryan again tried to protest, "That's ok. Really. I'll be fine."

The Kirsten was definitely in full swing, and she would not be deterred. "Ryan, please just promise me you'll call. I'm a mom; if you don't at least promise that, I'll be worrying all night and I won't get any sleep. That will mean I will be checking on you every 5 minutes."

Ryan chuckled slightly at that, as he thought of how different this life was to his former life. Dawn wouldn't have even cared if he had a headache, or worse. She never really wanted him to bother her for anything. Now this woman wanted him to promise to call in the middle of the night a few feet away if he needed anything.

Ryan finally rolled his eyes a little and nodded slightly, "Fine, I promise to call if I need anything. But I won't."

The room reverted to silence for a couple of seconds, with Ryan just looking between Sandy and Kirsten. Sandy could tell the kid's wheels were turning at warp speed; he was trying to put his thoughts into words. Finally, Sandy cocked his head to the side and furrowed his brow a bit, "What's on your mind, kid?"

Ryan's gaze fell on Kirsten for a few seconds, and she knew better than to look away. It wasn't a stare-down; she could tell. He was simply thinking, so she kept a warm smile on her face as she kept running a comforting hand up and down his arm.

Finally, he turned to look at Sandy. "You know, earlier you said that The Kirsten may make an appearance." That earned Sandy a light smack on the arm, which then elicited a little chuckle from Ryan that he tried to hide with a cough. He hissed a little bit as the cough aggravated his headache. It settled back down to a slight throb in just a few seconds. He continued, "But The Kirsten isn't what I would call her right now."

Kirsten put on her best Mom-face and put her hands on her hips in mock seriousness. "Well, then just what would you call me, young man?!"

Ryan looked at Kirsten, and for a second, she was stunned by the seriousness in his eyes. He said quietly, "My mom."

It only took her a moment before she carefully wrapped her arms around Ryan and held him tightly. Ryan was a little surprised by her reaction, but warmly returned the embrace. After a few moments, Kirsten allowed Ryan to lay back down on the bed. He chanced a glance at Sandy, and he had a proud, beaming smile on his face. It was clearly evident that he was very happy about Ryan's revelation.

Kirsten wiped a few tears away, and told him, "Oh, sweetheart! You have been my son for quite some time, and I will always be your mom!"

Ryan nodded at both of them and said, "I know that now. I mean, who else but real parents come and check on their kids to make sure they are alright, even over something as small as a headache."

"We will always be here to check on you boys, even when you don't want us to. That's what we're here for." Kirsten squeezed his arm lightly to stress her point. "All right, now to sleep. If your headache isn't better in the morning, I'll make an appointment with your doctor."

Ryan was about to object, but noticed the look on The Kirsten's, no his mom's face, and found that he didn't really want to. He could definitely get used to having real parents.


End file.
